Does the NJEA have a secret stash of medicinal marijuana?

If not, how do they explain this sentence in a diatribe against budget caps?

"Today, New Jersey has the highest property taxes in the nation, and we ranked 45th in the nation in state support for public schools even before the Christie administration cut state school aid by another $1.3 billion."

What are these guys smoking? New Jersey's public schools are far and way the most costly in the nation in terms of per-pupil expenditures. Our annual per-pupil cost of more than $17,000 is way ahead of any other state's spending figure. That's why we have the highest property taxes in the nation.

And obviously if we have the highest property taxes in the nation, as well as some of the highest income taxes rates in the nation, then we couldn't possibly have one of the lowest levels of state support for public schools.

As for the myth that tax caps somehow starve public education of money, I debunked that in this column from February in which I compared inflation in the education bureaucracy to inflation in the postal service. An excerpt:

In 1972, the per-pupil cost of education in New Jersey was a mere $1,000. That's about $5,000 in today's dollars. At that level, we would not have a property-tax crisis. If our education system had performed as well as our mail-delivery system, our income tax would pay for all school costs and a good chunk of our county and municipal tax bills as well.

But now let's compare that fantasy $5,000 figure to the actual cost of education in New Jersey. You won't find that number on the Schools Report Card. The number listed on the report card for the prior school year, $13,701, is useful only for comparing districts. But the report card leaves out billions in education expenditures that are picked up on the state level, such as debt service for construction and state contributions for benefits and pensions.

To get the real number you have to plunge deep into the state budget, which is osted on the Treasury Department website. If you wish to try this at home, find the budget, click on "Education" and go to Page D-100. There "support per pupil" is listed at $17,719 annually, about $4,000 above the report-card figure.

Now imagine if the people who run the post office spent this extravagantly. A first-class stamp would cost $1.50. At that price, the postal service would go out of business.

Maybe the people at the NJEA got first crack at the state's medicinal marijuana stash. That would explain their fantasy about the state underfunding education.

But if they think tax caps are such a bad idea, why not permit a Proposition 13-style cap to go on the ballot? Surely the voters would reject it if the NJEA's right about the effects.

They'd really have to be on drugs to try that stunt.

COMMENTS ALERT: If you want to challenge my numbers here, please cite numbers of your own, but keep two key facts in mind.
1. The line item I cite above is from the state budget, not local budgets. In New Jersey, all spending on education is considered state spending, thanks to Supreme Court decisions bought and paid for by the NJEA itself.
2. Even considering the amount spent solely in non-property-tax funds, New Jersey spends close to $9,000 per pupil (again see the budget cited). If you can find 44 states that spend more in state aid, please list them.
ALSO: Notice the way in which the NJEA is arguing against its own logic. On the one hand, they argue that the percentage share (not the actual amount, which is high relative to other states) of state aid is too low. On the other, they argue for a course of action that would make it even lower. Obviously, if we don't cap property taxes, then the state share will drop even further as the local share rises.
But here's a thought experiment: Let's follow their logic and have the state pay the entire amount. Drop property taxes entirely and it's entirely likely that just our state per-pupil amount will still exceed total spending in some states. I invite some enterprising reader to do that research, but I would bet a six-pack that the per-pupil amount New Jersey spends in state aid alone exceeds total spending in at least one other state. .